The Giant

The Giant
==========

After dinner, the children turned to Jacob and asked if he
would tell them a story.

"A story about what?" asked Jacob.

"About a giant," squealed the children.

Jacob smiled, leaned against the warm stones at the side of the
fireplace, and his voice turned softly inward.

"Once there was a boy who asked his father to take him to see
the great parade that passed through the village. The father,
remembering the parade from when he was a boy, quickly agreed,
and the next morning the boy and his father set out together.

"As they approached the parade route, people started to push in
from all sides, and the crowd grew thick. When the people along
the way became almost a wall; the father lifted his son and
placed him on his shoulders.

"Soon the parade began and as it passed, the boy kept telling
his father how wonderful it was and how spectacular were the
colors and images. The boy, in fact, grew so prideful of what
he saw that he mocked those who saw less saying, even to his
father,
'If only you could see what I see.'"

"But," said Jacob staring straight in the faces of the
children, "what the boy did not look at was why he could see.
What the boy forgot was that once his father, too, could see."

Then as if he had finished the story, Jacob stopped speaking.

"Is that it?" said a disappointed girl. "We thought you were
going to tell us a story about a giant."

"But I did," said Jacob. "I told you a story about a boy who
could have been a giant."

"How?" squealed the children.

"A giant," said Jacob, "is anyone who remembers we are all
sitting on someone else's shoulders."

"And what does it make us if we don't remember?" asked the boy.

"A burden," answered Jacob.


~Author Unknown~